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A WORLD WAR II MAP
The special navigation chart was brought to the states by me, from Italy. The war in Europe had ended and I was home safe after completing 25 combat missions in a B-24 bomber with the 456th Bomb Group in Italy. The map was stored in the attic of my parent's home and it stayed there for over 20 years. I went back to the Army in 1950, completed 17 years more, and then I retired in 1968. After that the map and other personal items were transferred to the attic of our farm house.
In 1986 I retired for good and started writing about my time in the service. I rooted through the attic and brought papers and other items of reference from there and placed them in my clothes closet.
About 1993 I had been asked to join a WW II fliers group that met in Allentown, PA once a month for breakfast. It is called the IWSA group, which stands for "I was shot at." Some of the group, who had been in B-24's, asked me to join the "The International B-24 Liberator Club" located in San Diego, CA. When I did, my name and address appeared in their magazine. As a result I received a letter from a navigator named Joe Hindman, who lived in Bartlesville, OK. He remembered me from 1944 and 1945 in the 745th Bomb Squadron. We have kept in touch since.
Once a year the IWSA displays items from World War II at the April meeting. We were asked to bring in items of interest. I checked my closet and found some maps. The one was rather large and on it was marked Paris to Rome. As I unrolled it I could see it was printed in April 1945 and someone had marked the FLAK locations, and the number of guns in red crayon. On the bottom margin was the name Lt Robert H Meissner. I put it aside and selected a smaller map because it was one used with the plane radar. It looked more like a photo negative than a map, so I took that to the meeting.
Days after the meeting I thought about the map with the name on it. I unrolled it again and copied the name on a piece of paper. I looked through my 456th Bomb Group history book and the name was not listed. Why wasn't it listed? My thoughts turned elsewhere until I had a call from Hindman. During our talk I mentioned the name Meissner and he said he knew him and he had been a navigator in the squadron. In past years he had been in touch with him, but through the years they had lost contact.
A week or so later I looked up the Group Historian and dropped him a letter to see if he had any knowledge of Meissner. I gave him my E-mail address and he responded by saying he didn't know him and all searches proved negative. I looked at the E-mail and Meissner was spelled wrong. When I checked my letter I saw that I had left out one of the S's, I E-mailed him a correction, with an apology. He replied that he still couldn't locate him. In the meantime Hindman had responded by giving me the name of the pilot Meissner had navigated across the Atlantic to join our group. I knew that name was in our 456th Bomb Gp newsletter, so I contacted Riley again with the new information.
On 21 April 1998, Riley E-mailed me to tell me he had contacted Meissner through the use of the on-line facilities. He found him in New York City. He now knows that the 456th has an association and Riley is sending him some newsletters and an application blank. His name has been added to the 456th Bomb Group listing and he has become part of its recorded history and rightly so. All because he wrote his name on the bottom of a map in April 1945.
It is fitting to note that in 15 days we will celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the ending of World War II in Europe on the 8th of May.
-RWR- 23 April 1998